My pal wanted a weekend away on the bike as a pillion so we decided on a 2 day trip, 1 day up to Inverness via some popular biking routes and back through the Cairngorms country park
The trip up was made great due to sunshine all the way, heading north west from Stirling, we turned off towards Aberfoyle to take int he Duke's Pass and rejoin the main road to Tyndrum, for lunch at the Green Welly (irresistible Cullen Skink) .
Bumped into an old pal in the carpark so that was an added bonus. We discussed suspension and how my bike's rear shock has almost died.
The rest of the day took us through Glencoe (via Glen Etive), where a blind pickup driver pulled out in front at the last second....... on to Fort William, then Fort Augustus. The Highlands had never looked better. We hit every swing bridge over the Caledonian Canal so there was a small traffic queue at each one, whcih made my pal laugh when we just overtook the lot of the cars and jumped to the front. Cheeky 
The bike was superb all day, the nearly worn Angel GT tyres were a difficult decision - change them for new ones before heading off, or rely on them being a known quantity, I chose the later, inflated the front to 34 and the rear to 38psi and it turned out to be fine.
A night in Inverness with good food and local music, and a leisurely start at 9.30 heading south, with a fuel stop at Aviemore, where I met another old pal who was in Harley mode with his HOG chapter, and they had already made a plan which matched the first part of our trip so we tagged along behind as far as Tomintoul, where we parted company.
The next hour or two was spent riding through the ski resorts, and back into Perthshire, down through Perth and then Fife, avoiding the motorway.
As for the bike it couldn't have done better, not least of all considering we clocked over the 109,000 mile mark yesterday. ('02 bike on a '04 plate, TDM900)
I weigh 17 stone, my mate weighs about the same, and we had 2 Givi E21 panniers on, but, despite that, and despite the '-1' 16 tooth front sprocket (superb mod for taking a pillion up hills) , and despite the remap and disablement of the overrun fuel cutoff, we've clocked 197 miles today since filling up in Aviemore, there's still 1 bar on the fuel meter so I reckon 220 miles would have been possible.so it's hard to fault fuel consumption........It definitely needs that new shock though
EDIT -just realised the low fuel consumption I mentioned is arrived at through the -1 front sprocket....1/17th overstated, or 6% overreading ...so my 220 mile estimate is probably actually 205 - 210 miles, on a standard sprocket. Still happy with that !
Another surprise were the Cardo Scala Q1 intercoms. You can select different functions for audio, bluetooth music, mobile phone calls, and a rider to passenger intercom function, as well as standby mode (in standby mode they can last for days i think) They did over 5 hours each day (recharged overnight) with the intercom permanently activated while we yacked in 'full duplex'. The in helmet speakers aren't too powerful so we used in-ear type headphones plugged into the socket for the helmet speakers.
Can't find faults with the TDM really, given it's age and mileage, Without question it's been the best value for money bike I've had
Edited by fixitsan, 29 August 2021 - 06:27 pm.
Thanks for sharing.
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